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Should I be worried....?

I have recently switched to Firefox after using IE6 (service pack 2 installed) for the last six months. Today I had some financial transactions to perform on line so I first ran Spybot then ran Norton Anti-virus (after first making certain I had all updates to each.) After that, I went about my business.

I then got a couple of pop-ups on Firefox so - out of curiousity - I ran AdAware 6.0 and found about 44 different "hits" that Spybot and Norton had missed. Most of them were "data miners" which I think are relatively benign (?) but several of them had "malware" as the description. Unfortunately I deleted the files before writing them down so I cannot list them here.

Should I be concerned that any of these programs were able to log my credit card #, SSN, etc.? Will the fact that I was operating on Firefox instead of IE6 offer me any comfort here?

Did you run Ad-aware _since_ you started using Firefox and have you used Firefox exclusively since the date you switched?

Don\'t SYN us.... We\'ll SYN you..... \"A nation that draws too broad a difference between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards, and its fighting done by fools.\" - Thucydides

A quick test would be to revisit the sites you did for your banking etc. in Firefox and rescan. If you find the same of similar things then you have a problem - not to mention your bank...

If you find the same again then repost with what you found, if you don't then iit was leftover nd you have nothing to worry about fromn the Bank. Run Spybot and Ad-aware weekly for a couple of weeks. IME, I have had nothing since changing to Firefox.

Don\'t SYN us.... We\'ll SYN you..... \"A nation that draws too broad a difference between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards, and its fighting done by fools.\" - Thucydides

For my own education, a couple of additional questions, if I may? As I understand this, then, even if these malware programs were capable of logging information, the fact that I was in Firefox and not operating in IE6 would have made them a non-threat? In the future, if I need to use IE6 for something, it will run the risk of exposing Firefox to the spyware/adware or no?

Potentially, yes, malware can expose you even though you are running Firefox but that's more to do with the way the malware works within the OS than the fault of firefox.

If you use IE make sure you are going to trusted sites or scan after using it with both spybot and ad-aware.

Don\'t SYN us.... We\'ll SYN you..... \"A nation that draws too broad a difference between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards, and its fighting done by fools.\" - Thucydides

Thank you again, Tiger Shark. I'm only slightly confused at this point but am cautiously optimistic based upon your second post (the fourth in this thread.) Appreciate the benefit of your time and experience.

I would recommend that you use AVG by Grisoft as your Anti-Virus. I use it and it works wonders, sometimes it will pick up bugs that Norton's does not. It's free, and you can get it here: www.grisoft.com